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I always feel paranoid these days when using car message boards because of what happened to me when I got my X3.

I was on the Roadfly site, which has many different brands. I was on an X3 board.

I thought I used a dummy name to sign up and I used my hotmail account. While using the MB I made sure not to even mention what state I was in or what dealership I was using. I did mention my profession and talked a lot about the car I was getting and when it arrived etc.

I was upset about the guy forgetting to include my heated steering wheel and his failure to apologize, offering to start over, etc. I might have whined about a few other things (runaround they gave with bluetooth-wasting my time and money, having to redo the wiring on the rear entertainment) but when I rated them, I gave them all 5s.

Anyhow, I was in the process of moving when I bought the car so I had moved.

BMW sent me an e-mail to my personal account connected to billing explaining that they have been reading my messages for months and to make up for any unhappiness they had sent me a gift but they were disappointed that I rejected it. I explained to them that I didn't reject it but that I had moved. They sent the gift to the new address but after that I was freaked out and never really went on that board again.

I couldn't figure out how they knew it was me (maybe only certain cars were delivered with certain specifications per day). And what got me was following for months. So they sit there, read your messages and don't say anything? Creapy...lol I guess BMWNA hired them to secretly get feedback.

Most companies do have people monitoring the forums. In many ways, it is a very simple way to get "honest" feedback about product. I guess I see your point about them hunting you down, but at least the intentions were honorable. I had a co-worker post pics of his Harley project on a site. Harley contacted him after the project was completed and gave him props on the design and work. They also incorporated several elements on one of their future Dark Custom bikes.

It was like an X3 Parka or something like that. You are making me laugh because I opened it but never used it. It wasn't cheap quality or anything. I'm just not a Parka kind of guy. lol Still free is free.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadking40

Most companies do have people monitoring the forums. In many ways, it is a very simple way to get "honest" feedback about product. I guess I see your point about them hunting you down, but at least the intentions were honorable. I had a co-worker post pics of his Harley project on a site. Harley contacted him after the project was completed and gave him props on the design and work. They also incorporated several elements on one of their future Dark Custom bikes.

Yeah. I guess it is a good way to get honest feedback but how did they know it was me? My hotmail e-mail does not have my name and for signing up I made up a name that sounds like my hotmail account. I did not use my real name. I guess the creapy part is that the person said they had been reading my messages for months. It wasn't like they said they saw one thread/post. So I sort of felt like some record was being kept. All the while, I'm a nice guy and wouldn't want the dealership to get in trouble so if I knew I was being spied, I would not have whined so much. Like I said, I gave them all 5s.

It was an early time for them. I was the first person at my dealership with the Rear Entertainment System for the X3. It was their first year with bluetooth and rather than admit they had software issues, they tried to blame it on your phone. They wouldn't fix it until I went and bought a $700 Razor phone (when Razor was the shix) to prove it was the car. Then they got serious. Once he fixed it, it worked for all my phones...so it wasn't the phone...just BS.

They probably know who you are right now...lol And me telling the stories, they've probably identified me too...lol Scary.

The only thing I can think of is when they were having problems with the bluetooth/RES, I called and they called BMW NA for guidance. Maybe there was only one person having problems at that exact time...then if I post about it and say my car will be in the shop for 3 days, I guess they put it together. Had they contacted me via hotmail, I would have just thought Road Fly sold my address to them but they used my OTHER email. It's just creapy.

I agree it is nice they were trying to keep customers happy because they are right that happy customers are repeat customers. They'll get their money back.

Quote:

Originally Posted by innovativeit

No need to feel paranoid as long as you're honest about what you write. Sounds like you were.

Yeah...but just don't think you are being anonymous...like I said...I even purposely left out my state and I was still tracked down.

It just taught me to be careful. BMW is still a small community...especially when you have BMW assist. lol Big Brother is watching...lol

We were a crazy obsessed group of people. lol I'll admit it. Mine was temporary insanity. They had this thing where you could check the progress online and I checked it 2-3 times a day. Then someone showed me how to track your car on the ship using your VIN. lol I checked at least twice a day. The dealer wouldn't order my accessories (Rear entertainment, MP3 input, etc) until it arrived in the US and I didn't want any delay (the car being here then having to wait a week for parts then wait for them to install). As soon as it arrived in NY, I called my dealer and told them the car is on US soil so order my accessories. lol I know they figured I was crazy! lol

Oh OOOOOO
I better behave from now on. Please forgive me BMW, Is that why my oil change is more expensive than my co-worker...same car, same year the different just color black on mine & white on her???

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Oh OOOOOO
I better behave from now on. Please forgive me BMW, Is that why my oil change is more expensive than my co-worker...same car, same year the different just color black on mine & white on her???

BMW has a specific service that they pay for (like many companies) to monitor websites. Most of the time they can farm the information from them (fan type websites) as part of some mutual agreement or obligation.

So unless you use proxy servers or mirror sites to create ghost accounts it really isn't hard to track down folks at all.